Yes, it’s true, I finally have a new story! I had only planned to do a couple captions (which I still hope to get done before Christmas, though I admit it isn’t looking good at this point) this year, but fan Tiresias Rex e-mailed me about a dream he had that got a few ideas going for me, and Sierra allowed me to take advantage of her character another time. This is a sequel to my last story about her, Sierra’s Magical Thanksgiving, and while I don’t know that it fits into the continuity of the stories she’s written about the character herself, I do hope that she, and all of you, enjoy it! Happy Holidays!

“What do you have there?”

Sierra looked up, biting into the bulb of her pacifier at the sound of the voice booming above her, the question sending a chill down her spine as she recalled what had happened the last time she’d been asked that. Quickly, she tried to slide the envelope into the pocket of her coat, but a huge hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled it back out, revealing the front, and the words crawled across it in crayon. Sierra’s cheeks darkened as her eyes travelled up the arm attached to the hand, staring up at the girl standing beside her in her pink snowsuit.

While she wasn’t as imposing as the forest of arms that had introduced her to this world, the girl was still quite intimidating, her high, childish voice almost worse than the smooth, mechanical tone that had come through the speakers that first day. After what felt like hours of oatmeal and juice of various kinds – mostly apple and prune, though there were a couple taste she didn’t recognize – her pacifier gag had finally been removed, along with the hose that had been attached to it. Bloated and tired, Sierra had immediately begun to swing her wand, which she’d been clinging so desperately to all that time, trying to blast away the mechanical arms still hovering above her.

Her magic took much more concentration here, for some reason, simply fizzling out if she didn’t put her all into it, which left her dribbling helplessly into her extra-thick diapers as she cast her spells, unable to focus on staying dry as much as she needed. For all that, it did her no good, as the magic simply bounced harmlessly off of the arms time and again. After a few minutes, she decided her revenge was not as important as getting home, so she tried to open a portal like the one that had brought her here.

And that was when she heard those words, echoing all around her. “What do you have there?” She looked up, gulping in fear as she saw that the arms had returned in full force while she’d been trying to remember exactly how to cast the spell, and were now hovering all around her. “That is not an approved toy.”

“It isn’t a toy!” she informed them, scrambling clumsily to her feet. “This is a weapon, and if you don’t let me go, I’ll use it on all of you!” She tried to point the wand at each of them in turn, though there were too many to keep her eye on all of the arms at once.

“Then please turn it over,” the voice told her calmly. “That is not safe for a child of your age.”

“I am not a child!” she yelled, stomping her foot. “Let me out of this place right now!”

“Turn over your weapon right now, or you will have to be punished,” the voice replied, sounding much sterner, though that did nothing to change Sierra’s resolve.

“Never!” she spat. Instantly, she discovered how unwise that was as a flurry of hands descended on her. In moments, the wand was yanked away from her, and as she reached upwards, trying to snatch it back before it was pulled into the ceiling with the arm that had taken it, a stiff pink mitten was slid over her hand and locked into place. While she was busy watching that, the same happened to her other hand, and when she tried to curse at the machinery, her pacifier gag was shoved and locked back where it had been before her feeding. Suddenly, she felt something poke against her full stomach, and then she was being tugged over the small hump that had grown out of the floor, leaving her bottom in the air, feeling rather cool for a reason she couldn’t quite place until she realized her diaper was now around her ankles.

She didn’t have long to worry about that, however, before she felt a quick, hard whack against her now bare backside. She let out a muffled shout of pain, trying to squirm away, but there was an arm for each of her limbs, holding her in place while she was given the spanking of her life, only days after being given one by Madison, the girl she’d been babysitting for years and years. When the room had finally decided she’d had enough, the hands lifted her into the crib in the corner of the room and laid her down, though they remained dangling out of the ceiling, as if waiting for her to try something else…. At the time, however, all she had the strength to do was whimper and squirm as the oatmeal finished making its way through her body, and she helplessly filled her diaper before drifting off to an exhausted sleep.

After spending several days at the robotic nursery, waiting for a rescue that had never come, being pumped full of baby food and juice at every opportunity, the system had finally realized she didn’t belong there, and she’d gotten her first glimpse at the other humans in this place as one of them arrived to pluck her out of her crib and take her to the police station.

Sierra had almost been too terrified to answer any of their questions, squirming in a hard, wooden chair that they’d had to help her into because it was so high. Of course, it was perfectly proportional to them, which only made her feel smaller as she gulped, fidgeting in place, trying to convey to them that she was an adult, not a lost child. She’d always been very petite, but she’d never felt it nearly as much as she had then, surrounded by the gigantic police officers all wanting to know where her parents were. She tried to give them her father’s phone number, but according to them, there weren’t nearly enough digits in the one she’d recited, and their home address didn’t exist, either.

Finally, they’d given up on her, and she was dragged back into one of their cars and taken to an orphanage, where she was stripped, thoroughly examined, then declared a toddler and dressed in a thick diaper and plain gray dress before finding herself in a crib yet again, this time surrounded by rows of other cribs, a few with actual children in them – some of whom seemed proportional to the giants she had been dealing with since leaving the last nursery – but mostly with men and women close to her own size, yet clearly fully grown.

She’d been certain she was trapped there until her wand fixed itself, or her teacher somehow found her here, but thankfully, after only a few hours of pacing in her huge, new crib, surrounded by the smell of used diapers and stale baby powder, a familiar face walked up to her crib and looked down at her. “Hi, there, sweetie!”

“Mrs. Case?!” Sierra had gasped, her eyes widening. Sure, she seemed to be nearly twice as tall, but it was clearly the woman who had hired her time and time again as a babysitter for little Madison.

The woman’s eyebrow raised for just a moment before she shook her head. “Did you ask one of the other officers my name?” she asked, confused, before simply shaking her head again. “Well, never mind, that hardly matters, does it? In face, maybe that means this is fate! I saw you when they had you at the station and thought you were simply darling! And if you saw me, and were curious enough to find out my name… Well, I guess it was meant to be! Now, sweetheart, I know we don’t really know each other, but… Would you like to come home with me?”

Sierra quickly nodded her head, having experienced enough of the alternative to know that almost anything was better than that. She knew that this was a different dimension, and that this Mrs. Case wasn’t the same as the one back in her own world, but it had felt quite strange, having to reintroduce herself to the person whose house she had spent so much time in, especially once she found herself right back in that house and met the other residents. Mr. Case looked just the same as always, just taller; Madison, on the other hand, looked just as she had when she was only five, if not even more adorable. Unfortunately, she was also larger than she had been back in Sierra’s world – big enough, even at that age, to tower over the other girl.

It was her personality that had really changed, however. The Madison Sierra had taken care of was a sweet little girl, curious, but mostly harmless, at least when she kept her hands off of Sierra’s wand. This one was a brat, pure and simple. When Sierra had first seen her, she’d run up to the girl to give her a hug, but Madison had simply pushed her away, making her fall back onto her still padded bottom. “I don’t like her!” Madison had pouted. “I don’t want a little sister! Babies are boring!”

“I’m not a baby!” Sierra had tried to claim, despite her diaper, and its wet condition after the long ride there.

She even thought she might have convinced Mrs. Case of that during their talk in the car, though the woman didn’t mention that at all when she broke in to say, “She doesn’t have any family to take care of her, Maddy!”

“She’s dumb! Take her back! I want a dolly, not a stupid baby!” Madison had whined before flopping onto the floor herself and starting to throw a tantrum. “I don’t want her here! Get rid of her!”

Sierra was truly shocked. In all the years she had babysat Madison, the girl had never once acted this way, and certainly never about Sierra. She’d gotten to her feet, feeling uncomfortable as she watched the spectacle unfold. The Cases did their best to calm down their daughter, offering her cake and ice cream, and even an early Christmas present, if she would just stop crying. Thankfully, once she had, and was happily sitting on the couch playing with a new stuffed animal, Sierra was still allowed to stay.

Madison attitude towards her didn’t get much better, however. She would steal Sierra’s dessert whenever her parents weren’t paying attention, grab the remote right out of her hand when she was watching TV, and intentionally hog the bathroom when Sierra was trying to prove she didn’t need diapers. Playing in the back yard with her was even worse, as Madison’s parents would trust their fence to keep the girls safe rather than keeping as close an eye on them as they needed, giving Madison the opportunity to push Sierra in the mud when it was warmer out, or stuff her diapers or training pants with snow once it had gotten cooler. Of course, Sierra was always the one to get in trouble when her clothes were dirty, or the snow melted and left her padding soaked.

There were a lot of things that had taken some getting used to in this new world, but the new, bratty Madison was, perhaps, the hardest. Sierra was sure that, normally, it would have only taken her a day or two to convince Mrs. Case that she didn’t belong in diapers, but with Madison there, it had been weeks before she’d finally earned her way into training pants, and now, with only a few days until Christmas and Madison not letting up, Sierra had a feeling she wouldn’t be getting upgraded from them to real underwear anytime soon, if only because that would give Madison one less thing to tease her about.

“Give it back, Madison!” Sierra insisted, trying uselessly to yank her hand out of Madison’s, to take back her envelope, her pacifier falling from her mouth, only to be caught by the small plastic chain holding it to her coat.

“Thought so!” Madison declared, holding the letter up high above Sierra’s head and reading out the name of the addressee. “To Santa Claus! I thought you said you weren’t a baby!”

“I’m not!” Sierra pouted, lowering her arm now that it was too late. “I know that Santa isn’t real, your mom just made me write it!” Madison burst out laughing, making Sierra blush, kicking at a pile of snow. “She did!”

“That just means she knows the truth about you!” Madison teased. “Of course Santa is real, stupid! Where do you think toys come from on Christmas? But only babies write to him!”

“But she made me!” Sierra repeated yet again, grumpily reaching up for the envelope again, hoping to catch Madison by surprise.

“Because she knows that, no matter how much you whine, you really are just a little baby!” Madison smirked.

“Fine, just throw it away, then! I don’t care!” Sierra huffed, crossing her arms and starting to turn to go back into the house, only to be caught by surprise at Madison’s response.

“No way! This is gonna be a blast! I can’t wait to see what he does to you!” Sierra spun back around, brows furrowed in confusion. “Are you such a baby you don’t even know?” Madison giggled. “Well, let big sister Madison tell you all about it! See, Santa Claus is real, and he’s really busy, obviously, because he only has a year to make present for everybody! So he doesn’t like it if you write to him asking for something specific, especially this time of year. If you’re a baby, he doesn’t mind too much, and if you’ve been really good, he might not, either… But usually, he just gets mad.”

“That’s not true!” Sierra blurted out, as if she’d have any idea. Still, that didn’t sound anything like the Santa she knew from her dimension. Things were different here, sure, but would he really have changed that much? Or was Madison just messing with her? She shook her head, a red tint returning to her cheeks as she realized she was just accepting what this girl was saying about Santa being real. Maybe it was possible here, but, then again, Madison was just a little kid.

“I guess you’ll find out!” Madison said, marching up to the mailbox and putting the envelope inside. Sierra followed a step or two after her, staring up at the box, unable to deny how nervous she was starting to feel. What if Madison was right? She liked to think she had been good that year, especially since showing up in this world, but who knew how someone from here would judge her?

“Wh-What’s he gonna do, bring me coal?” she chuckled anxiously.

“Coal?” Madison wrinkled her nose. “Why would he do that? I hear he brings diapers, or big baby outfits, to show parents that their kids belong back in them for being greedy! Or, the older sister of one of the boys from my class got a paddle last year. She’s still in the Auto-Nursery now.”

Sierra bit her bottom lip, fighting the urge to pop her pacifier back in to suck on it – that was the one thing about this place she didn’t mind so much, as the feeling was really quite calming. “You’re just trying to scare me! I don’t believe it!” she insisted.

“Okay,” Madison shrugged. “We’ll see what happens! As naughty as you are, I bet he fills the whole living room with diapers!”

“I’m not naughty!” Sierra complained. “You are!”

“You’re the one who wrote to Santa, though,” Madison stuck her tongue out.

Sierra rolled her eyes, shifting her weight back and forth slightly, trying to convince herself to turn around and head back into the house, but not quite able to take her eyes off of the mailbox. She wanted Madison to move away so she could get the letter back out – just in case – yet the girl wasn’t budging, and she didn’t miss the fact that Sierra wasn’t, either.

“I bet the mailman’ll be here any minute,” Madison observed. “Maybe if you promise to be a good girl and do my chores and whatever I say for all next year, I’ll take that letter out of there for you.”

Sierra’s stomach lurched at that thought. She hadn’t expected to be here for as long as she had been, but the idea of being stuck for another year, even more at this little brat’s mercy than she already was, made her shiver.

Madison shrugged. “Let’s go inside, then!” she declared, reaching out to grab Sierra’s arm. “We don’t want you to catch a cold this close to Christmas! That wouldn’t be any fun!” Sierra tried to dig in her heels, but, as usual, Madison easily dragged her away, leaving the mailbox and its contents behind. “Mommy, Sierra went potty in her pants again!” Madison yelled as soon as she opened the door, not even waiting to get all the way inside. “Want me to change her?”

“Did n..!” Sierra tried to shout, only to get her wish from a moment ago, as Madison shoved her pacifier into her open mouth.

“Yes, please! You’re such a good little helper!” came Mrs. Case’s voice, not even bothering to check Sierra herself, just accepting that she’d had another accident. Mrs. Case was still just as nice as she had been in the other world, but, unfortunately, she was far too trusting of her daughter. Sierra had a brief moment of hope when the woman leaned into the hall, right as Madison was about to pull Sierra into the nursery, but she just said, “Make sure to mark it down on her chart!” before vanishing back into the kitchen, leaving the older, yet smaller, girl to have her dry training pants switched out for a thick diaper at Madison’s whim.

As she was lying on the changing table, waiting for Madison to finish taping her diaper up, she heard the familiar sound of a car stopping in front of their house, and, to her embarrassment, a small trickle of pee escaped into her pants as she realized that, whether Madison had been lying to her or not, it was too late to take back her letter.

“Mommy, she wet herself again before I could even finish changing her!” Sierra jumped at the sudden outburst, face blazing bright.

“If it isn’t much, just leave her for now!” Mrs. Case called back. “Mark it down on her chart, too! And once you’re done, could you two go get the mail? It just went!”

“Yes, Mommy!” Madison grinned down at Sierra, patting the diaper’s final tape into place as she watched Sierra try desperately, and fail, to keep the other girl from seeing how worried she was feeling, before starting to sing. “Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus…”

Just as they always seemed to do, the last few days before Christmas dragged on, though this year it was for a far different reason. Usually, Sierra was anxious to see what her father thought of the presents she’d bought for him, and what he’d gotten her. She would try to fill those days between getting home from school and Christmas with as many Christmas movies, cookies, and carols as she could manage.

Now, however, she was busy fretting over what Madison had told her. In a matter of moments, Madison had caused her to lose her trainer privileges for the rest of the week, over one tiny accident that Sierra thought should barely count, and an imaginary one that definitely shouldn’t have, but Sierra was too worried to give it too much thought, although she was still quite pleased when Mrs. Case, as an early present, let her switch back to Pull-Ups on Christmas Eve.

Not wanting to let the opportunity go to waste, Sierra stuck around Mrs. Case as much as she could, making it harder for Madison to lie about the state of her underwear, but with the added benefit of giving her the chance to be right there when Mrs. Case offered her the last of the cookie dough in the mixing bowl, or when the finished treats were taken out of the oven. It was almost enough to take her mind off of what the next morning might bring, at least until her bedtime. Since she’d stayed (almost) completely dry, once Mrs. Case had dressed her in her footed pajamas – a special pair, green with fake buttons and a belt, the feet curling up at the toes with a bell hanging off the ends to make them look like an elf’s outfit – the woman left the side of her crib down, so she could run to the bathroom during the night.

Normally, she would have loved that option, but the past few nights she’d grown used to being able to roll over and see those bars there, knowing that, while they kept her from getting out, they might also protect her from anything else getting in. It was ridiculous, certainly, especially since the thing she was so afraid of was Santa Claus, but, like her pacifier, there was something comforting about the security of it.

As she laid there, watching the daylight slowly fade outside her window, only to be replaced with the soft glow of the Christmas lights decorating the outside of the house, she tried her hardest to fall asleep before the adults. She was used to spending a few restless hours in her crib because of her early bedtime, but it had never bothered her as much as it did tonight. As long as she could hear other people moving around the house, she knew there was no way Santa, if he actually was real, would show up.

So her heart sank when, after several attempts at keeping her eyes closed for as long as she could bear, trying to force herself to drift off, she opened them to find even the Christmas lights outside her window off. She turned towards her nursery door and saw there was no light coming from underneath or the slight crack it was open, either, and, no matter how hard she strained her ears, she couldn’t detect any sign that Madison or her parents were awake.

She snuggled deeper under her blankets, sucking harder on her pacifier, trying now not to jump at every sound. She knew that, even if she did hear a footstep, it wasn’t necessarily Santa, and she knew that, even if it was, and he was real, he would probably just leave her present under the tree, and not come into her room to find her, but still, she would have felt far safer with the side of her crib up. She’d hesitated to ask Mrs. Case to do it, knowing it would seem suspicious since she usually complained about it, especially when she should be excited to get up in the morning and open her presents, and now she regretted it.

Finally, she carefully got to her feet, listening to the crinkle of the plastic sheet beneath her, and tried to pull the side up herself. It barely budged. She’d always had trouble with the thing, but usually it was because the latches were just barely too high up for her to reach when it was locked in place; she’d never tried to lift it into place. How strong were these giant versions of Mr. and Mrs. Case? Bracing herself, she tried again, pulling with all her might, but only managed to get it up a foot or so before it slipped free of her hands and slammed against the floor. She winced, waiting for Mrs. Case to check on her, or Santa to come in and punish her for being awake so late. Neither happened, but she gave up on her quest, knowing there was no way she was going to manage it.

After a few more long minutes of tossing and turning, she realized she had a bigger concern anyway, one that would have been an even larger issue had she actually been able to lock herself into her crib. It wasn’t a real surprise, she supposed – she didn’t know how long she’d been there, but it was certainly long enough for her bladder to fill up, and the big Christmas Eve supper she’d eaten to make its way through her tummy. She didn’t think Mrs. Case would hold a night-time accident against her potty training record, but it didn’t seem like she would be getting much sleep that night, and she didn’t want to be stuck in wet, or worse, training pants all night.

Sierra wiggled in place, pressing a hand to her lightly padded crotch, the urge to use the bathroom growing ever stronger now that she was thinking about it. She knew the Cases wouldn’t care if she was up to go to the bathroom, and, as she kept reminding herself, Santa probably didn’t exist, yet the idea of leaving her room kept her frozen in place. If she was wrong, if Madison hadn’t just been trying to scare her, if Santa Claus really was going to come down their chimney that night… Would he understand if he found her out of her room so late? Or would that be evidence of her being naughty, maybe enough to land her on his bad list? And if he really was as temperamental as Madison said, she wasn’t sure she’d want to see him in person.

On the other hand, she’d had far too many accidents since coming to this world, and they were still just as humiliating as the first, and the idea of intentionally using her training pants was even worse. One or the other was bound to happen if she just stayed there…

Finally, she slid out of the crib, hopping down to the floor below, padding across the room, the thought of leaving her pacifier behind not even striking her until she was already at the door. Normally, she could just barely reach the doorknob if she stood on her tiptoes, but, since she’d been given permission to use the bathroom, Mrs. Case had left the door open just enough that Sierra could pull it open and make her way out into the quiet hall, heart reverberating in her chest as she forced herself to keep moving.

She planned to just dash for the bathroom and close the door as quick as she could, then hurry back to her room, but she couldn’t help catching a glimpse of the living room as she pulled the bathroom door open. The Christmas tree lights were still sparkling in the darkness, giving her just enough light to see that the number of presents underneath had grown significantly. That wasn’t unusual, of course – she had no doubt Mr. and Mrs. Case had brought out all the ones they’d been hiding in the hall closet once Madison had been put to bed – but even so, it stopped her in her place. Yes, they were almost definitely the Cases presents… Santa was quite certainly just a story, even in this dimension…

But what if he wasn’t? What if he’d sneaked in, like he supposedly did, so that even she hadn’t heard him? What if he’d gotten her letter? What if he’d brought her present?

She knew it was silly, but she felt her feet carrying her towards the tree anyway, eyes scanning the piles of packages. Most of them were for Madison, though a fair number were addressed to Sierra, claiming to have been sent by Santa, although she recognized the handwriting as Mr. Case’s. At least, that was who had written the names on most of the packages. There were a few, however, piled up right under the tree, right within sight of the end table where they’d set the cookies, now nothing more than crumbs on the plate, that looked to have been penned by a completely different hand.

Her eyes widened as she scurried over, kneeling down. It wasn’t Mrs. Case’s writing, either, and even though she tried to tell herself that it was likely just a relative she hadn’t met yet, she felt her hopes rising when she saw her present. It looked just about the right size….

She reached out for it, stopped short with a worried suck on her paci. There could be anything inside, really, and if it was just some gift from one of Madison’s great-uncles, she would run the risk of getting in trouble for opening presents before anyone else was awake. But was that really what worried her the most? Even she wasn’t positive. There was a part of her that worried it really was from Santa, as the tag proclaimed. If it wasn’t what she’d wanted, what was she going to do? And what would it be instead, if Madison was right about how he reacted to being written to? However, if it was what she’d asked for, what did that mean? Did Santa just deem her nice, or was Madison right about his criteria, too, and he simply thought of her as a baby, too silly and little to know better?

Then again, if the box contained what she hoped it did, what did it matter what this dimension’s Santa thought of her? Sure, if he was like the one in her world – or in the stories of her world, rather, she reminded herself – he was wise, and saw everything, and would be in a pretty good position to judge her maturity, but she doubted he could see beyond the wall between dimensions, so he would only have her antics here to go off. Even she was willing to admit that, since arriving in this reality, she had been less than mature, though that was hardly her fault.

Whatever it would say about how Santa viewed her, if she got the present she’d asked for, this would all be over. She could escape this oddly diaper-obsessed world and be home in time for Christmas, just barely. She was sure her father would be worried about her, and she missed him quite fiercely. If there was a shot she could see him on Christmas, she was going to take it, despite the risk of potential spanking her premature unwrapping might bring.

She picked up the package and turned it over, carefully peeling up the tape to undo the wrapping, going as slowly as she could bear to ensure she would be able to replace it if it was just another toy or something. Underneath the paper was a small, plain, white box, no markings on it that she could see. Carefully pushing the wrapping paper to one side, she grabbed the box’s lid and, holding her breath, lifted it.

She let out an involuntary gasp when she glanced down to see what was inside, tears suddenly springing to her eyes. Could it really be…? She dropped the lid, her careful movements quickly forgotten as she reached down and picked the item up from inside the box.

It was. At least, it looked just like it, and felt just like it in her hand. Her heartbeat began to speed up as she lifted it, a smile crossing her face.

Madison had been right – that had to be it. Santa, in this dimension at any rate, was real, and whether he had judged her as truly nice, or just enough of a baby to let her slide, he had done it. She couldn’t think of any other explanation for how her wand could be in that box after she’d lost it to the robotic nursery.

She’d debated quite a while with herself over just what to ask for, considering simply requesting to go home, and hope that one of her teachers could summon her wand from this world. She wasn’t sure if this Santa would know what she meant by that, though, or if he would assume that the Case household was it. Her wand seemed like the safest bet, even if she did have trouble using it when she’d first arrived. As long as she had it with her, she’d have a chance.

Of course, she’d done all this debating even before Madison had told her Santa was real. She tried to convince herself it was because she’d just been able to tell instinctively; it wasn’t like she normally believed! Even so, she could have easily just asked for a doll or something, or simply scribbled something to make Mrs. Case happy, but she’d actually asked him for something…. And, against all odds, she’d received it.

Even after the weeks she’d spent here, she still remembered the spell that had brought her here like it was yesterday she’d cast it. Unfortunately, just like when she’d tried to reverse it that first day, her spell simply fizzled out before transporting her anywhere. She’d had plenty of time to think about it since those first attempts, and she’d been expecting this result, though it was still disheartening. She tried it one more time, pouring all the concentration she could manage into it, but all that got her was a pair of damp training pants, and almost a heart attack as a sudden cramp had wracked her bowels at the worst possible time.

It made sense, in a way. The spell had worked back in her dimension, but she’d never managed it here. She suspected magic wasn’t as powerful here, but more than that, the spell itself might just be wrong, because she was starting from a different place. It was a scary thought, since there were an awful lot of variations in the incantations she might have to go through before finding the right combination, but at least she could get started on it, now that she had her Christmas present.

For the moment, however, she had other plans. The Case family, other than Madison, had been nice enough, but she didn’t want to have to spend her time here, as she searched for her way out, as a baby, and it seemed that people her size were practically destined for that in this world; luckily, she no longer had to remain that size.

She had to admit she’d dreamed of doing this more than a few times as she lain in her crib, and while going home would have been preferable, this would be nice as well. Things could go back to the way she was used to with Madison, where she was the bigger one, the one in charge. Maybe, with her influence, the girl would end up as less of a little spoiled brat, although she wondered if she was too late for that. At any rate, she would be able to get a little revenge. She could just imagine the girl’s face when she came downstairs Christmas morning to discover that she wasn’t the biggest “child” anymore.

She’d had plenty of experience with growth spells while trying to undo what the other Madison had done to her back on Thanksgiving, and she wasn’t aiming for a specific height, so it was a simple enough matter to cast another one. The uneasy sensation that came with these sorts of bodily transformation spells washed over her, and, in an instant, the world blurred as she felt it whizzing past her, so she closed her eyes to try to make the transition as smooth as possible.

When she opened them again, however, things were definitely not as she’d expected. As she looked over at the tree, she expected to find it looking like a normal tree, rather than seeming almost as tall as a building to her, like it had since Mr. Case had put it up. Instead, it was even taller, to the point where she could barely see the star at the top. In fact, even most of the presents themselves, stacked on the floor around the tree, were now larger than her. “No, no, no!” she shook her head, stomping her foot as she realized what had happened. “This isn’t fair!”

She started to raise her wand to try again, only to be stopped by a strange rustling sound, like wrapping paper. She froze, afraid that, somehow, Madison had sneaked into the room without her noticing and was trying to get a peek at her presents. The last thing she needed was for the girl to spot her like this, even littler than usual! She lowered her wand and scurried between the boxes, deeper under the tree, trying to ignore just how huge some of the presents around her were, seeming to stretch up like brightly colored buildings around her. There were so many of them, in all shapes and sizes, and while she’d seen most of them waiting under the tree for days now, this was a whole new perspective she wasn’t used to, and in moments she felt absolutely lost in the Christmas-y maze.

As she turned one corner, she discovered the source of the rustle that had sent her running, and for a split second she felt a sense of relief, seeing that it wasn’t Madison after all. It didn’t last long, as the truth was much stranger – there, in front of her, a box addressed to Madison from Santa was slowly shedding its wrapping paper. Already it was halfway open, and Sierra could see that it was a doll, a petite, blonde doll who looked an awful lot like Sierra herself, right down to her outfit. Sierra knew something very odd was going on, but her feet had suddenly frozen to the floor as she watched more and more of the box being revealed. At her current size, it looked like a cardboard and plastic prison, and the more she looked at the doll, the more unsettling its appearance was. While it was hardly the most pressing matter at hand, she couldn’t help but think that it likely wasn’t a good sign that what Santa had thought Madison wanted was a baby doll that looked just like her.

Just as she was wondering if perhaps having the doll would at least mean that Madison would leave her alone, the doll’s head suddenly turned to stare right at her, its hand moving, slamming against the plastic “window” on the front of the box. Sierra let out a strangled squeak, falling backwards onto her padded bottom that was suddenly a lot wetter, the shock loosening her bladder. The doll’s face, looking even more like her own with every passing moment, began to grin as it reached for the front of the box again, giving it an even harder smack. The box wobbled for a moment, then began to fall, and Sierra had just enough time to scramble backwards out of its way before it fell in front of her with a thud.

She gulped, her throat suddenly dry. What in the world was going on?! Clumsily, she began to climb to her feet, bracing herself on the present behind her, making it just in time for the top of the box to fly open, a small hand emerging from underneath. She had just enough time to see the doll start to crawl out before she turned and started to run back through the presents, not wanting to see what the thing was planning on doing.

Unfortunately, she didn’t make it far before another cramp hit her, doubling her over and bringing her to a quick halt as she clamped her hands to her backside, gasping as she felt a lump forming back there, smearing against the rear of her Pull-Ups. Desperately, she fought to get it under control, though she knew it was a futile effort at this point – it had already started, so it was now just a matter of time before she thoroughly filled her pants. Panting, she turned, only to see the doll rounding the same corner she had, eyes locked on her. She dashed forward, ducking between packages, weaving this way and that to try to make herself that much harder to follow.

She knew the doll couldn’t be too far behind her, encouraging her to keep going, but unfortunately her chosen path led her right to a relatively smaller gift bag, one that she wouldn’t be able to walk behind without being seen. She sank her teeth into the bulb of her pacifier as she shifted her weight from foot to foot nervously, debating whether she was safe enough there or should keep going. It really wasn’t much of an argument, since she knew what she ought to do and just didn’t want to, and in a moment she was reluctantly dropping to her hands and knees to crawl her way behind the bag.

Almost instantly she regretted her decision, as the mushy lump in her pants grew as she bent herself into a crawling position, the pressure inside her taking advantage of her new stance before she was even halfway across the bag. She caught herself just in time to stop from standing back up, contorting to search for a variation of her pose that would help her to calm her bowels back down, not realizing until too late that her trainers were still expanding as she did so, rendering the search moot. She whimpered into her pacifier, hesitantly moving a hand back there to try to take stock of the damage before deciding it wasn’t worth the effort, gritting her teeth and pushing the rest of the mess out.

A moment later, she heard a loud sniff, followed by a dull thud, then another, growing ever closer by the sound of them. She pulled herself forward, peeking around the edge of the bag, giving herself a good view of the presents she’d just threaded her way through being pushed down by something making a bee-line right for her, possibly drawn in by the smell of what had just happened in her pants. Despite that very thing having made movement quite uncomfortable, she forced herself to start going again, crawling along until she had the room to stand once more, moving deeper into the sea of gifts.

There wasn’t much further to go, as it turned out, just enough space for her to pass another present or two before finding the trunk of the Christmas tree. There were a few smaller gifts behind there, but beyond that, only wall. For a moment, she stared upwards, wondering if she could scale the tree, but she’d never successfully climbed a tree in her life, and this seemed like a bad time to start. It was only once she had taken off in a random direction back through the presents that she remembered the wand being clutched in her hand… She was so used to being without it here, she hadn’t even considered using it to help her get up into the tree to hide.

What was wrong with her?! A few weeks, and already she had forgotten all her training! Maybe this place was getting to her more than she realized, since running away had seemed like the only real option. She could camouflage herself, or confuse the doll, or tie it up, or…

While she was running through the possibilities, she heard another sniff, much too close for comfort, and then a present was knocked down right behind her. She spun with a gasp, raising her wand, but the doll was already on her, grabbing her by the wrist so hard she nearly dropped her wand and yanking her forward, back through the wreckage it had created trying to find her, the holiday wonderland now a wasteland of torn paper and half-exposed toys. The doll was holding her so tightly she couldn’t move her hand enough to cast anything, and pulling her inevitably back toward that place where she’d first seen it.

Sure enough, it stopped in front of its own box, kicking the corner of it until it flipped over, plastic window facing upwards. Sierra shook her head desperately, positive she knew what was coming next, struggling with renewed strength to try to stop it. Through the front of the box, she could now see pink cuffs on the sides of the box, and two at the bottom, positioned just right to hold somebody inside, and while she hadn’t examined the thing thoroughly the first time she’d seen it, she felt rather certain they hadn’t been there before. They were there just for her, part of a gift from Santa, though whether it was one meant for her or for Madison she didn’t know.

The doll turned to her with a grin, and Sierra shook her head desperately, trying to convey to this thing with her face that it couldn’t do this to her while, as if to prove her wrong, it began to push her into the box, shoving her hand with the wand inside first and locking it into place before Sierra could break free, making it all the easier for it to attach her other hand. Her eyes widened as the doll pushed the lid closed above her, sucking anxiously on her pacifier and staring out of the box at the tree’s branches above her. After a moment, the flap below her opened, giving her a brief moment of hope before the doll simply locked the ankle cuffs into place and shut the box back up, sealing Sierra inside like a baby doll waiting to be opened and played with.

In the confines of the box, the smell of her well-used training pants emphasized how helpless she was here, how humiliating this whole thing was. She didn’t know if this was because what Madison really wanted was a baby doll to torment, or whether Santa had devised this as a cruel twist, making her think he had granted her wish when really he was just punishing her for being naughty, but either way, she couldn’t think of anything worse than seeing Madison come downstairs in the morning and find her.

Not for another few seconds, anyway, when the doll demonstrated exactly what it would take to add an extra layer of embarrassment to it all. The box lurched around her, sliding across the floor slightly, only to do it again, then again. Sierra strained, trying to look out of the box to see what was happening, but she could still only see the lights twinkling over her, and the bottoms of the ornaments she’d helped to hang. It wasn’t until the box stopped being moved and she heard an all too familiar – though much louder than usual – rustling sound that she figured out what was going on, and even then she could hardly believe it until she saw the doll trying to push a huge piece of paper over the front of Sierra’s box. For a moment, she was bathed in darkness, and then, luckily, the paper fluttered back down, but that was close enough for her.

The doll was wrapping her back up. It was going to let Madison unwrap her like a real present from Santa, and find her there, wet and messy and almost definitely crying, since she wasn’t a fan of the dark and even that brief flash of it had been enough to send her into a momentary panic. This couldn’t happen! She couldn’t let it!

She shook her head, trying to figure out what to do, wriggling her hand in its bondage. She could move it a little… But her wand was pointing at her feet. The best she could do there was trying to first a spell through the bottom of the box and hope she could hit the doll to stop it. She had no idea how strong the thing was, however, or what sort of creature it might be, and she wouldn’t really be able to see to aim properly. Maybe she could blast apart the cuffs around her ankles, but she wasn’t sure she’d be able to control the magic well enough to not also blow through her leg, which was less than ideal. She might be able to move the box, though she didn’t know how to stop the doll from simply following.

There was always her original plan, however. She’d wanted to get bigger, and while that had clearly not worked out well the first time, that didn’t make it a bad idea. Clearly Santa had interfered with her wand somehow, but she had a feeling she could get around that, as well… If a growing spell had shrank her, perhaps a shrinking spell would help her get big enough to bust out of this plastic prison.

She gasped as her box was pushed yet again, followed by a huge piece of wrapping paper being pulled over half of her box, blotting out half the Christmas lights above her. She looked over at her wand, still pointed in the wrong direction, and began cautiously trying to adjust her hand. It was being held tight against the box, giving her little room to maneuver, and she didn’t dare move too quickly for fear that her wand would bang against the side of the box and cause her to drop it, since she didn’t know how she would manage to get it back into her hand after that.

She could hear paper being folded above her head and began to nurse her pacifier while she tried to concentrate, slowly working her wand into just the right position before the doll could move to her other side and seal her into complete darkness. Praying she was right about her hunch, she cast a shrinking spell, reproducing the wand movement as closely as she could with her limited hand movement.

Sure enough, a moment later, she was free from the cuffs around her hands and feet, yet when she looked up, the plastic window was still above her… Far above her. She gritted her teeth, stomping her foot as she stared upwards, hardly able to believe her luck, though she supposed she shouldn’t have expected to outsmart an all-seeing immortal being that easily. She really had gotten even smaller yet! It wasn’t fair!

Outside the box, the doll was still working. Sierra thought about trying a third size spell, perhaps going back to a growth spell this time, but she wasn’t sure she could afford to get much smaller. She wasn’t sure how tiny she was now, but it was far littler than she was comfortable with. Obviously, she wasn’t going to be bursting through the box like she’d planned, but there had to be another way out! She stood there, wracking her brains, for longer than she would have cared to admit before realizing just how simple the solution was.

All she had to do was toddle to the side of the box opposite where the doll was working, and then a simple cutting spell got her through the cardboard and out into the open, though she hardly felt free there, with the Christmas tree and presents looking even more imposing around her. She probably should have given a little more thought to what they were going to do afterwards before actually starting her escape, as, just a moment later, she heard a familiar sniff, and saw the doll stand from the other side of the box and begin to stomp its way towards her, now a huge, looming figure of doom. Her eyes darted around her, desperate for something that would help her out of this mess. She glanced back up at the tree, wishing she’d just gone up there when she had the chance…

But it wasn’t too late for that, now was it? Her eyes lit upon a torn piece of wrapping paper, and with a quick levitation charm, it was transformed into a festive flying carpet. She jumped onboard, aiming it upwards, and it took off like a shot. Her stomach roiled inside as she barrelled toward the tree; she’d never liked riding broomsticks, and this wasn’t much better, especially when she looked down and saw the paper straining under her weight. The limbs were too tight together right at the trunk, so she had to steer her precarious steed further out so she could try to glide around the branches after seeing the needles of the first branch she passed by shred part of the paper, and duck around ornaments, many of which were the same size as her, if not bigger.

She gulped as she lost another chunk of wrapping paper to the tree, the force of it nearly sending her careening off into space as she held tighter to her makeshift carpet. She was probably high enough now to just find a perch and hide, and still be safe from the doll. She would definitely feel safer if the paper would just slow down a little, but unfortunately, by the time she thought that, she was once again too late. The paper flew across another set of needles, and she felt it split beneath her. Desperately, she tried to wrangle her steed to get her to the nearest branch, but it was falling apart on her, and, before she knew it, she had gone from flying to falling.

Her eyes widened as she swallowed a scream, sure this was it, glad she had already emptied her bladder and bowels, or they would both be letting go right then during her free fall. Thankfully, it lasted only a moment, and then she felt herself stop in midair, catching on the neck of her sleepwear, which yanked the garment tight against her, squishing her used Pull-Up violently on her bottom while her arms windmilled and feet pedalled wildly as she bobbed up and down a few times.

Once she stopped bouncing, she was able to take stock of things a little, glancing upwards to try to get some idea of how she was still alive. From what she could tell, one of the tree’s branches had caught her collar and was now holding her in place, like an ornament of a little baby elf. She seemed to be pretty secure there, whether she liked it or not, and after opening and closing her fists a few times she decided she was okay.

It took her a moment to realize what was missing, a gasp escaping from behind her pacifier when she turned her head to her hand and saw that her wand was, indeed, no longer in it. She must have lost her grip on it in the crash! She looked down, trying to see if she could spot it on the floor below, but that only made her stomach churn when she saw how high up she was. Not that it would have done her any good, anyway – it would be no bigger than the pine needles that littered the floor beneath the tree, and even if she found it among them, she couldn’t reach it from up here.

She couldn’t do much of anything, really, not without running the risk of plummeting to the floor below. If she stayed still, she would be fine, if a little uncomfortable. She had no doubt Madison would be up early to open her presents; she only hoped the girl didn’t spot her hanging there before her parents came down and decided to keep her as her own secret, miniature, pet. She wasn’t sure if Mr. and Mrs. Case could really help her, but surely they’d realize something was up, and would help her find her wand, although she doubted they would let her keep such a potentially dangerous thing. Maybe there were other witches and wizards they knew that could get her back to her original size… Or maybe Santa was the only one here with that kind of power. Would the Cases at least let her try to undo all this shrinking before they confiscated her wand?

Whatever happened, she was stuck there for the time being, just another Christmas ornament on the giants’ tree, unable to escape from her messy training pants or her predicament. She knew she should try to think of some way to phrase what had happened to Mr. and Mrs. Case to convince them she should be allowed to keep her wand, but all she could think about was the undeniable fact that Santa was real. He was kind of a dick here, sure, turning her wand against her, sending a doll version of herself to try to trap her, but he was real. At least she knew that now for next year… She didn’t like to think about spending another full year in this world, yet if she did, and she was a good girl the whole time, then maybe he could help her get back home.

And if she was really lucky, Madison wouldn’t have her hanging on the tree again when he came the next year.